


No Place Like Home

by astudyinfic



Series: Holidays 2020 [9]
Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Kelly centric, Not Beta Read, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyinfic/pseuds/astudyinfic
Summary: It's Ty's year to take Kelly home for the holidays, so off to West Virginia they go.
Relationships: Kelly Abbott & Nick O'Flaherty, Kelly Abbott & Ty Grady
Series: Holidays 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036116
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	No Place Like Home

**Author's Note:**

> **Day 9: Family**
> 
> Prompts can be found [here](https://astudyinfic.tumblr.com/post/635866337200259072/decided-it-was-time-for-a-new-holiday-prompt-list).

Kelly wondered if Ty had drawn the short straw that year. At the holidays, he always seemed to have an invite to go home with one of the team. (Not Nick but everyone knew why that was, even if none of them said it.) He'd been to upstate New York with Owen, Louisiana with Digger, and all over the country one eventful winter to visit all of Eli's relatives in a whirlwind trip of planes and cars. 

This year, he was off to West Virginia. Kelly had no idea what to expect. 

He knew the team did this for a reason. He was the only one who didn't have a home to go to. He stayed in touch with his foster family as best as he could - a Christmas card here, a birthday card there - but otherwise, it was just Kelly. And Sidewinder wasn't about to let one of their own be all alone if there was anything they could do about it. 

Kelly loved them, even if he did get tired of being the team charity case. 

Still, with his bag in tow, he climbed into the Bronco for the drive to Bluefield. Ty had music blaring and they rode in companionable silence, having learned long ago that sometimes just being together was all that mattered. Kelly watched in fascination as they started climbing the Appalachia mountains, the snow starting to fall when they still had an hour or so to go. "You call these mountains?" he teased, knowing that it would set Ty off. "They're like, hills at the most."

He spent the rest of the drive laughing at Ty trying to defend his sad little hills as the most impressive mountain range the world had ever seen.

If someone asked him to describe where he thought Ty came from, Kelly wouldn't have mentioned a picturesque farmhouse in the middle of the mountains (if you insisted on calling them that). He wouldn't have pictured his mother tall and proud and giving out hugs to them as they walked in the door. Kelly didn't know the last time he had a hug from a mother. 

It was nicer than he remembered. 

Ty went right to the kitchen, grabbing food from the counter and complaining to his mother about the potholes in the driveway. "I could help fix them," Kelly offered, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them. They were supposed to be on vacation but he'd never been very good at sitting still. It was either find some chores to do or he was going to start climbing around the hills to see what made them so special. He didn't know if Ty would be very keen on a hike in December. 

"Oh dear, you don't need to do that," Ty's mother told him. Mara, Ty had said, but she insisted he call her Ma the moment they met. 

Kelly hadn't called anyone that since his own mother...

Shaking his head, he pushed that thought aside. It was Christmas. It wasn't time to focus on the things he'd lost but on the things he had, to be grateful for the life he had built for himself. 

Maybe someday he would build his own home, so he could have a place that was truly for him. Then he could have all of his teammates to his house, so he didn't feel like he was intruding on theirs.

Ty's dad was...exactly like what Kelly imagined. A large, gruff man reminiscent of so many Marines Kelly had known over the years. He was not a man of many words but even Kelly could see that he loved his son. And the way he talked about the hills around them... Kelly could imagine his dad and Earl Grady would have had a lot in common. They might have even been friends. 

If his dad was still around, would Kelly have gone into the Navy? Would he have met Sidewinder? Was there any chance that Nick and Owen, Digger and Eli and Ty would have been in his life in some other way? 

Probably not. 

But he still wished his parents were here to meet his teammates and for his teammates to meet them. 

Ty's grandfather was something else entirely. If he'd pictured a gentle old man rocking on the porch and telling stories of the old times, Kelly would have been right on exactly one of those points. The moment they reached the stairs up to the porch, the man threatened to brain them both with a shovel he kept in his lap. 

"Don't ask but don't challenge him either," Ty had said under his breath. The words must have carried because the man shook his shovel at them in a menacing manner. Kelly never knew a shovel could be menacing. 

If he was looking at Ty's future, Kelly pitied his friend's future wife. It was a terrifying glance into the psyche of a man Kelly already feared analyzing too closely. 

When Ty went out to help his mother with something, Kelly called Nick to check up on him. 

"Hey man. Everything okay?" Nick answered in greeting. 

"Yeah, just fine. Weird to be here, though."

Nick chuckled. "Bluefield? Yeah, it's another world. Or are you talking the Grady compound in particular?"

"Both? Ty's mom told me to call her Ma, his dad is a more terrifying version of Ty and his grandfather might be batshit crazy. I definitely understand Ty better now and it's only been an hour."

At that, Nick laughed heartily. "That sounds about right. Just enjoy it. They're a little strange but they all mean well. One of the best families I've ever met. They'll welcome you in, even if they've never met you before." Kelly could hear the wistfulness in his friend's voice and wondered if Nick wished he was here too. They all knew about Nick's family, so he probably did. 

"Next year, let's both come here for the holidays. I have a feeling they wouldn't mind."

"The more the merrier, my dear," Mara said from the doorway, smiling kindly at him. "Tell Nicolas hello and when you are done, you better get in here before Ty eats all the snacks on his own."

Kelly nodded. "Yes ma'am. Thank you." 

"I have to go, Nicko. Apparently, there are snacks that Ty will eat if I don't go in and get some for myself."

Nick groaned, an inappropriate noise for what they were talking about. "If it's the pie crust things, you'd better hurry. You've seen Ty eat on normal occasions but this is something else entirely. And trust me, it's worth fighting him for."

Kelly signed off and went to join Ty in the kitchen. Nick was right, whatever those things were, they were delicious and he and Ty kept grabbing for them, slapping at the other's hand and laughing the whole time.

It was nice. It was comfortable. It was familial. 

Kelly tried not to focus on the past too much. It happened and there was nothing he could do to change it. At this moment, he wondered what life would have been like if he still had his parents, his family. 

But when Mara smacked them both on the head with a wooden spoon and sent them outside to get them out of her kitchen, Kelly smiled and grabbed the last few treats on the way out the door. He might not have his biological family anymore, but he had this. His brothers and their families. And most of the time, that was just as good.


End file.
